Category: Iraq

TheTaq Taq-Khurmala Oil Pipeline. (KAMARAN NAJM/Metrography/Iraq Oil Report) Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has not paid its oil contractors since November, highlighting political and financial problems that could hamper plans to increase production and exports.“We’re not going to be in a position to invest until we are able to receive more in payments,” said Bijan Mossavar Rahmani, the Executive Chairman of Norway’s DNO, in a Feb. 5 presentation to investors. “Companies expect and were promised payment. And without payment they’re no…

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – At least 15 people were killed in two bombings in and around Baghdad on Monday, police and medical sources said, the latest in a string of deadly attacks to hit the Iraqi capital in the last two weeks. A suicide bombing at a security checkpoint in the Shi’ite neighborhood of Kadhimiya killed 13 civilians and wounded more than 30 others, the sources said. The neighborhood is home to one of the holiest shrines in Shi’ite Islam and is the regular target of such attacks. Two people were later killed when a bomb went off on a main street in a northern suburb, police and medical sources said. No person or group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings. Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that seized large parts of northern and western Iraq last year, regularly targets Shi’ite neighborhoods in the capital. At least 37 people were […]

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – At least 22 people were killed in two bombings in eastern Baghdad on Saturday, police said, hours before the government was due to lift a long-standing night-time curfew on the capital. At least 50 people were wounded in the blasts, the officials said. In the first attack, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt inside a restaurant in the Shi’ite neighborhood of New Baghdad, leaving 12 dead. In the second attack, two bombs ripped through the bustling Sharqa market district, killing 10 people. Earlier police had put the number of dead at 23. The interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said he did not believe the blasts were linked to the decision to lift the curfew. The Iraqi government announced on Thursday that the decade-old curfew in the capital would end on Saturday at midnight and that four neighborhoods would be "demilitarized". The moves are […]

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Gulf Keystone Petroleum suspends oil exports from Kurdish north of Iraq because of payment row. Photo courtesy: Gulf Keystone Petroleum. LONDON, Feb. 6 (UPI) — Exports from the Kurdish north of Iraq through Turkey are suspended while payment negotiations continue, Gulf Keystone Petroleum said Friday. The British company said it’s owed an unstated amount in payments from the Kurdish government. As a short-term measure , crude oil was redirected to the local market and exports by truck through Turkey are suspended. "This is expected to be a short term measure until a regular payment cycle can be established for sales via the export route," the company said. In the meantime, the company said it was working on finding ways to get crude oil from the Shaikan development in the Kurdish north out of the region through pipeline networks. Last month, the company announced with its Hungarian partner MOL it […]

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(Bloomberg) — Foreign oil producers in Iraqi Kurdistan are resorting to selling crude at about $30 a barrel in the domestic market as the government hangs on to companies’ export earnings amid weaker world prices and a costly battle with Islamic State. “The government’s announcement was that there would be payments coming,” said Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, executive chairman of Norwegian producer DNO ASA, said in an interview in Oslo. “That payment I think got disrupted because of lower prices and the resolution of the budget issues.” That’s forcing DNO to increase sales to the local market. “The companies cannot go on forever investing,” Mossavar-Rahmani said. “Local sales are an opportunity for us to get oxygen as we wait for those larger issues to come together.” DNO, Genel Plc and Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. received an initial $75 million from the Kurdistan Regional Government for their exports last year that was […]

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(Bloomberg) — DNO ASA, a Norwegian oil producer focused on northern Iraq, said its fourth-quarter loss more than doubled after higher output from the autonomous Kurdistan region failed to counter impairments due to lower crude prices. A net loss of $252.5 million came after an impairment of the same amount on oil and gas assets, the Oslo-based company said in a statement on Thursday. That compared with a $98.1 million loss a year earlier, and missed the average estimate for a $4.8 million loss of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. “Our focus in 2015 is to align our spending with our earning,” Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said in the statement. “We are targeting operating efficiencies, cutting back on discretionary expenditures and high-grading our portfolio.” The loss comes as DNO continues to build up production, especially from its flagship Tawke field, after the semi-autonomous Kurdish and central Iraqi governments reached […]

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Tugboats position an SPM pump in the Basra Gulf in January 2012 as Iraq expands its export capacity. (ALI ABU IRAQ/Iraq Oil Report) Iraq’s oil exports fell by nearly 14 percent in January, after a record-setting December, due to rough weather and technical problems in Basra and strained relations between the Baghdad government and the autonomous Kurdistan region. The federal State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) sold just 2.535 million barrels per day (bpd) in January, compared to 2.94 million bpd in December, according to an official with access to SOMO data. The disappointing rate of export further compounds Iraq…

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Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers at the Khabbaz oil field after regaining control after an assault by militants from the so-called Islamic State group. (KAMARAN AL-NAJAR/Iraq Oil Report/Metrography) Recommend 3,412 people recommend this. Sign Up to see what your friends recommend. The 22 workers at the Khabbaz oil field faced two options: feign allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group, or die.At dawn on Friday, IS militants had raided the field as part of a seemingly coordinated, multi-pronged offensive that lasted until Sunday, leaving scores dead and taking the 20,000 bpd field offline. In addition to Khabbaz, located east of the Bai Hassan oil field in Kirkuk’s Daquq district, IS fighters attacked – and were ultimately defeated – in Kirkuk …

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Diyala stands as a microcosm of Iraq with a mixed population of Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and Turkmen [Reuters] When one of Iraq’s Shia militia commanders this week declared the province of Diyala "liberated", few people familiar with the province believed it would be a lasting victory. In a country with a largely Shia south, Kurdish north and Sunni west, Diyala stands as a microcosm of Iraq – a mixed population of Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and Turkmen. The apparent massacre of dozens of unarmed villagers by Shia militias is a reminder of the war within a war potentially more dangerous to Iraq than the fight against ISIL. The accounts from survivors of the massacre in Barwana are horrifying. But particularly chilling was an account from one of the survivors, a university student, that the gunmen knew their victims. "I realised there are two types of militias," he said. Shia militia […]

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ANKARA/LONDON (Reuters) – Iran is sweetening the terms it offers on oil development contracts to draw the interest of foreign investors deterred by sanctions and low crude prices, as its pragmatic president seeks to deliver on his promise of economic recovery. Tehran is engaged in talks with world powers about its disputed nuclear program as it tries to strike a final deal to lift the sanctions that have halved its oil exports to just over 1 million barrels per day since 2012 and hammered its economy. To prepare for any agreement, it has already circulated new draft oil contracts to foreign firms to attract business once the restrictions end, Iranian oil officials and Western diplomatic sources said. Such deals would involve helping Iran revive aging fields and develop new ones, they added. But there is no certainty about the outcome of the nuclear negotiations. The contracts offer far more […]

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